I know I'm incredibly LTTP on this one, but I had to stop playing just to post about how amazing the music is in this game. I'm only an hour in, but the theme of Colony 9 is bringing me back to the PS1 era. I feel like I'm playing Chrono Cross or Final Fantasy 8 for the first time, and for someone 27 years old that's a special thing. The only way a game could be better is if it made me feel like I was playing Chrono Trigger or FF6 for the first time again. Maybe Earthbound.

I know I'm incredibly LTTP on this one, but I had to stop playing just to post about how amazing the music is in this game. I'm only an hour in, but the theme of Colony 9 is bringing me back to the PS1 era. I feel like I'm playing Chrono Cross or Final Fantasy 8 for the first time, and for someone 27 years old that's a special thing. The only way a game could be better is if it made me feel like I was playing Chrono Trigger or FF6 for the first time again. Maybe Earthbound.

Who's the best damage dealer? Everyone keeps saying Melia but my Shulk does 10k+ most times and Melia's thunder only does like 5-6k after full intemidate upgrades. Also her summon than cast makes her slower :/

I'm still missing a lot of intermediate books for the 7th character and i checked every shops before Agniratha, and found nothing. Are most of these books drops or something, or is there more shops waiting for me later?

I'm still missing a lot of intermediate books for the 7th character and i checked every shops before Agniratha, and found nothing. Are most of these books drops or something, or is there more shops waiting for me later?

Same here, I think there's ONE shop very very end game, like the last shop you come across... I think. But honestly I think you just find most of the advanced arts as drops.

.. Honestly you really don't need'em right away. This is the only character that heavily relies on auto attacking and not spamming arts. I used them for the end boss and only ever upgraded like two of their arts. Don't let not having them keep you from using them.

Who's the best damage dealer? Everyone keeps saying Melia but my Shulk does 10k+ most times and Melia's thunder only does like 5-6k after full intemidate upgrades. Also her summon than cast makes her slower :/

I played with Melia the entire game pretty much, and I felt like Lvs 20-60 she kind of sucked. But after I got around Lv~70 with some advanced Arts (the summons cool off FAST) and boosted her Ether, Elec, Poison, and Burn damage... she is BEASTLY. She's definitely a lot better as a high level character and not so much as a mid-level character. I thought about dropping her many times over the course of the game because I felt her damage sucked, but it pays off in the end. (Plus she's a good Chain combo character because of her summons as well)

But to answer your interesting question... It's almost impossible to tell, because you have to consider the damage divided by time it takes to deal it, so a better question would be: "Who has the best damage:time ratio?". (I teach middle school math :p)

So the last character has a pretty high one, once you fully upgrade all of their speed, critical, double attack, and haste skills. They're doing fast fast damage that increases their Talent Art and then that does REALLY good damage.

But personally I think it may still be Melia.
Here's my thinking: If you fully upgrade her Poison, Flame, Thunder, and Ether % - I think she's tough to beat. Follow me here:
Summon Bolt > Copy Bolt > Summon Poison > Release Poison > Summon Fire > Release Fire > Summon Bolt > Release Bolt > Bolt > Bolt.
Now you are doing damage for 30 seconds of Poison that's boosted by the Ether Ups of the Bolt Summons. Now after you release the Poison you now summon Fire and release that. Now you are doing Burn damage as well for 20 seconds. Then you summon your last Bolt and release all three Bolts. Once you have 100% Elec Boost release those Summons does SICK damage.... compounded with all the 100% damage over time of the Burn and Poison damage, including the burst damage of those spells. You can also make that do more damage by toppling first with 1-2 Starlight Kick Topple combo, then start releasing Summons.

... So the way you'd discover this I guess would be to find a high level monster, issue battle order "Come to me" (Hold zR and press DOWN) so that way nobody attacks. Then just stopwatch how long it would take each character to down the monster individually. Now since every monster is different, it's not going to be an exact science, but it'll give you a rough idea.

To answer your question in summary though: I think Melia does the best damage in a single action (Have three Bolts summoned, then release) but The Last Character may have a better damage:second ratio once fully upgraded.

After 55 hours I'm about ready for this game to be over, even though I've enjoyed it a lot. I just fought Gadolt for the first time and I'm at level 63. I don't know if I'll be strong enough to finish the game or how much farther I have to go. Random encounters and the most recent boss haven't given me any trouble, but I'm expecting to hit a wall any hour now. I'd also like to get some more skill trees but I don't want to spend that much time doing quests. :P

After 55 hours I'm about ready for this game to be over, even though I've enjoyed it a lot. I just fought Gadolt for the first time and I'm at level 63. I don't know if I'll be strong enough to finish the game or how much farther I have to go. Random encounters and the most recent boss haven't given me any trouble, but I'm expecting to hit a wall any hour now. I'd also like to get some more skill trees but I don't want to spend that much time doing quests. :P

Nah I think you're good. I entered the last dungeon at Lv71 and was wondering if I should grind up somewhere else first... nope. By the time I hit the end boss I was Lv80. What I'm trying to say is that you level up really fast in the last two locations you visit.

... I think I hit a small wall of fatigue too at around ~55 hours. Don't worry the story gets "interesting" (bat shit crazy) so the game finishes pretty strong. I think you're in a bit of a lull, but you're pretty close to the end where the story takes a better turn.

I played with Melia the entire game pretty much, and I felt like Lvs 20-60 she kind of sucked. But after I got around Lv~70 with some advanced Arts (the summons cool off FAST) and boosted her Ether, Elec, Poison, and Burn damage... she is BEASTLY. She's definitely a lot better as a high level character and not so much as a mid-level character. I thought about dropping her many times over the course of the game because I felt her damage sucked, but it pays off in the end. (Plus she's a good Chain combo character because of her summons as well)

But to answer your interesting question... It's almost impossible to tell, because you have to consider the damage divided by time it takes to deal it, so a better question would be: "Who has the best damage:time ratio?". (I teach middle school math :p)

So the last character has a pretty high one, once you fully upgrade all of their speed, critical, double attack, and haste skills. They're doing fast fast damage that increases their Talent Art and then that does REALLY good damage.

But personally I think it may still be Melia.
Here's my thinking: If you fully upgrade her Poison, Flame, Thunder, and Ether % - I think she's tough to beat. Follow me here:
Summon Bolt > Copy Bolt > Summon Poison > Release Poison > Summon Fire > Release Fire > Summon Bolt > Release Bolt > Bolt > Bolt.
Now you are doing damage for 30 seconds of Poison that's boosted by the Ether Ups of the Bolt Summons. Now after you release the Poison you now summon Fire and release that. Now you are doing Burn damage as well for 20 seconds. Then you summon your last Bolt and release all three Bolts. Once you have 100% Elec Boost release those Summons does SICK damage.... compounded with all the 100% damage over time of the Burn and Poison damage, including the burst damage of those spells. You can also make that do more damage by toppling first with 1-2 Starlight Kick Topple combo, then start releasing Summons.

... So the way you'd discover this I guess would be to find a high level monster, issue battle order "Come to me" (Hold zR and press DOWN) so that way nobody attacks. Then just stopwatch how long it would take each character to down the monster individually. Now since every monster is different, it's not going to be an exact science, but it'll give you a rough idea.

To answer your question in summary though: I think Melia does the best damage in a single action (Have three Bolts summoned, then release) but The Last Character may have a better damage:second ratio once fully upgraded.

I see im only level 47 so i don't even have poison yet but ill substitute with wind

So after grabbing shitty component Wii cable and having to go back to composite I've decided to just buck up and use dolphin. Luckily my dvd drive is one of the ones that can rip my game, so I'm dumping right now.

So after grabbing shitty component Wii cable and having to go back to composite I've decided to just buck up and use dolphin. Luckily my dvd drive is one of the ones that can rip my game, so I'm dumping right now.

I would love to play on Dolphin, but my computer has a 7800GT from 7 years ago.

So wait, I just got finished with the first town where I started like fifteen quests, but didn't get to finish any of them before the mechon attack. I was kinda waiting until the tutorial was over. What's gonna happen?

I see im only level 47 so i don't even have poison yet but ill substitute with wind

You probably do now! Since you get it at 48.

Originally Posted by Adam Prime

I played with Melia the entire game pretty much, and I felt like Lvs 20-60 she kind of sucked. But after I got around Lv~70 with some advanced Arts (the summons cool off FAST) and boosted her Ether, Elec, Poison, and Burn damage... she is BEASTLY. She's definitely a lot better as a high level character and not so much as a mid-level character. I thought about dropping her many times over the course of the game because I felt her damage sucked, but it pays off in the end. (Plus she's a good Chain combo character because of her summons as well)

But to answer your interesting question... It's almost impossible to tell, because you have to consider the damage divided by time it takes to deal it, so a better question would be: "Who has the best damage:time ratio?". (I teach middle school math :p)

So the last character has a pretty high one, once you fully upgrade all of their speed, critical, double attack, and haste skills. They're doing fast fast damage that increases their Talent Art and then that does REALLY good damage.

But personally I think it may still be Melia.
Here's my thinking: If you fully upgrade her Poison, Flame, Thunder, and Ether % - I think she's tough to beat. Follow me here:
Summon Bolt > Copy Bolt > Summon Poison > Release Poison > Summon Fire > Release Fire > Summon Bolt > Release Bolt > Bolt > Bolt.
Now you are doing damage for 30 seconds of Poison that's boosted by the Ether Ups of the Bolt Summons. Now after you release the Poison you now summon Fire and release that. Now you are doing Burn damage as well for 20 seconds. Then you summon your last Bolt and release all three Bolts. Once you have 100% Elec Boost release those Summons does SICK damage.... compounded with all the 100% damage over time of the Burn and Poison damage, including the burst damage of those spells. You can also make that do more damage by toppling first with 1-2 Starlight Kick Topple combo, then start releasing Summons.

... So the way you'd discover this I guess would be to find a high level monster, issue battle order "Come to me" (Hold zR and press DOWN) so that way nobody attacks. Then just stopwatch how long it would take each character to down the monster individually. Now since every monster is different, it's not going to be an exact science, but it'll give you a rough idea.

To answer your question in summary though: I think Melia does the best damage in a single action (Have three Bolts summoned, then release) but The Last Character may have a better damage:second ratio once fully upgraded.

By the time you hit level 99, Shulk and Dunban also have the potential to be a bit better than Melia in terms of pure DPS. The problem with her poison and ice attacks is they have long cooldowns and the ice attack has very low range. In the end they might be good for dealing damage, but tactically you're better off with other arts.

Originally Posted by Mikey Jr.

I would love to play on Dolphin, but my computer has a 7800GT from 7 years ago.

So yeah.....

When I get a new comp, my second playthrough will on Dolphin.

What are the specs to max out Xenoblade?

Playing on Dolphin, have an 2500k at 4.5GHz and I still get occasional desynced/garbled audio but otherwise it's fine. Not sure what the lowest you can go is, but it's probably around 3.7-3.8GHz, but with a higher chance of sound issues cropping up.

So wait, I just got finished with the first town where I started like fifteen quests, but didn't get to finish any of them before the mechon attack. I was kinda waiting until the tutorial was over. What's gonna happen?

Just picked this up again after a ~6 month hiatus. I'm at about lvl45 at the big mechon fortress thingie that I have to "find a way into". The thing is, I see no entrance on the map or even an exclamation mark... help?

That first trip to Mechonis Field is probably my favorite moment of the game. The long ramp into the factory with the PSO-esque music kicking in... amazing.

it took me a while to appreciate it. by the end of the night, i was hooked. had it on all day at work yesterday.

today i progressed through the story a bit. my impressions: hahaha what the shit.

anyway, going back down and trying to level up affinity with places and stuff. i want to get to 3 stars with colony 9, but that means building a heart relationship with two female characters, which might take a while, but that's okay because another place has a bunch of quests right now.

i probably won't continue the story in a major way until saturday, or somewhere around the 68-70 hour mark.

it took me a while to appreciate it. by the end of the night, i was hooked. had it on all day at work yesterday.

today i progressed through the story a bit. my impressions: hahaha what the shit.

anyway, going back down and trying to level up affinity with places and stuff. i want to get to 3 stars with colony 9, but that means building a heart relationship with two female characters, which might take a while, but that's okay because another place has a bunch of quests right now.

i probably won't continue the story in a major way until saturday, or somewhere around the 68-70 hour mark.

Go to the lava cave where you get the stone to melt the ice. Unequip all offensive arts and equip a low level weapon. Pull the fire ether monster and jus auto attack it, after a few hits you can encourage your team and you'll be swimming in affinity points.

I might be able to progress the story by Saturday, too. I have 5 stars with Colony 9 and Frontier Village. Just have Alcamoth to go.

Go to the lava cave where you get the stone to melt the ice. Unequip all offensive arts and equip a low level weapon. Pull the fire ether monster and jus auto attack it, after a few hits you can encourage your team and you'll be swimming in affinity points.

I might be able to progress the story by Saturday, too. I have 5 stars with Colony 9 and Frontier Village. Just have Alcamoth to go.

Just picked this up again after a ~6 month hiatus. I'm at about lvl45 at the big mechon fortress thingie that I have to "find a way into". The thing is, I see no entrance on the map or even an exclamation mark... help?

I had that same problem (or at least I assume you're talking about this specific part). If you look around the paths you will see more ramps leading down to lower levels. You need to go down those and under the massive door looking things

Finally got all 4th skill trees for everyone, some were a pain in the ass to get, others were really fast thankfully.

4 stars affinity with every groups except Hidden Village which is at 5 stars.

So i continued with the main story and im at the part where(late story spoilers) Mechonis started moving again and my group went to the core with the Junks ship. How much is left? I know there is still a big part of Tephra Cave and Bionis Interior that i have yet to explore, and i heard about a 2nd visit to Prison Island yet the story doesnt seem to imply that i'll need to go back in all those zones soon, and it feels like endgame already.

Late spoilers again The part with the Mechonis starting to move again looked epic as shit. Man, i hope Monolith can do something has epic as this game with what the Wii U will be capable of. It will be twice as awesome.

Also, i'm really curious to know what Alvis and Dickson are planning. They've been hinting at more plans than simply defeating the Mechons/Egil for a long time now. Hopefully it will happen sooner than later.

Finally got all 4th skill trees for everyone, some were a pain in the ass to get, others were really fast thankfully.

4 stars affinity with every groups except Hidden Village which is at 5 stars.

So i continued with the main story and im at the part where(late story spoilers) Mechonis started moving again and my group went to the core with the Junks ship. How much is left? I know there is still a big part of Tephra Cave and Bionis Interior that i have yet to explore, and i heard about a 2nd visit to Prison Island yet the story doesnt seem to imply that i'll need to go back in all those zones soon, and it feels like endgame already.

Late spoilers again The part with the Mechonis starting to move again looked epic as shit. Man, i hope Monolith can do something has epic as this game with what the Wii U will be capable of. It will be twice as awesome.

Also, i'm really curious to know what Alvis and Dickson are planning. They've been hinting at more plans than simply defeating the Mechons/Egil for a long time now. Hopefully it will happen sooner than later.

You have a couple more areas to go. I'd recommend taking care of any timed quests in any locations that have some remaining before you do Mechonis Core.

I probably missed a few timed sidequests in some dark corner of Alcamoth's gigantic park that only show up at 3am, but i stopped giving a damn about that now, especially since im at 4 stars. :P

You'll need 5 star affinity for the fifth skill trees!

Assuming you go for those and the "post-game" content, that is. If you do, I'd really recommend beating the final boss when you get to it rather than putting it off until after the optional higher level stuff.

You can't continue your file if you save after beating the final boss (it has you go straight to NG+) but I think you can choose not to do that and it will just take you back to the main menu, or just start it in a different slot.

Assuming you go for those and the "post-game" content, that is. If you do, I'd really recommend beating the final boss when you get to it rather than putting it off until after the optional higher level stuff.

You can't continue your file if you save after beating the final boss (it has you go straight to NG+) but you can choose not to do that or just start it in a different slot.

I probably wont bother for the 5th skill trees, hunting for hidden quests is becoming more of a pain in the ass than anything else and will not be worth it. I might try to get all my party members with the best affinities possible for all these little extra hearts-to-hearts scenes, but that's about it. Beside, I want this game to be over before Diablo 3 is released.

You can cheese affinity easily by taking advantage of monsters that have certain spike effects, so if you want to see the heart to hearts it's not hard to do, nor should it be too time consuming as long as you have the full list of them.

So i've been playing Xenoblade for a while now and having a great time, but yesterdays playthrough was a huge shocker. Metal face is actually Munkbhar (sp) and it makes PERFECT SENSE TOO. Glad I was too inattentive to notice it beforehand (his voice, the claws, his attitude towards Dunban... it's all there!!!) The Monado got a major power boost too (awww yeah I can final level up my monado skills) and it looks like Fiora is alive too. Things are reaaaaaaaally starting to heat up.

When I summon her powers, do I have to use the middle art to actually use them to hurt the creatures i'm fighting? Am I able to use the middle art even though it isn't filled all the way up?

You have to use the middle art to fill it up. Notice that you can even use it, if it is greyed out (as in comparison to the Monado). When its maxed, you get into Burst state which deals more damage and is required for some arts.

I probably wont bother for the 5th skill trees, hunting for hidden quests is becoming more of a pain in the ass than anything else and will not be worth it. I might try to get all my party members with the best affinities possible for all these little extra hearts-to-hearts scenes, but that's about it. Beside, I want this game to be over before Diablo 3 is released.

When I started this game, I was going to do EVERYTHING. I am now 50 hours in, and while I would like to do everything, my gaming backlog is so huge, that I cannot devout another 70 hours.

If I stumble onto something, I won't ignore it, but yeah, like you said, I am not scouring Alcamoth at 3am just to find some NPC that will give me a quest. Fuck that.

So I'm at ~11 hours and I'm really liking this game. I spent the first ~8 hours mostly doing sidequests, killing everything that I came across, exploring and just generally dicking around. I finally proceeded with the main quest and wow, shit gets real pretty fast. I did not see Fiora's death coming! I must say I was a little disappointed in Dunban's reaction; his sister had just gotten brutally killed right in front of him and he was like "aw man." Props to Shulk's English voice actor in that scene though. I have to say that I am still overall very impressed with the English dub in this game.

I just got to the Bionis' leg, and while the size actually feels overwhelming to me, I have to hand it to whoever designed the landscape — that is some great art direction. I seriously just stood there for a few minutes and panned the camera around when the sun was setting because it looked absolutely beautiful. I haven't felt like that since I played Okami.

I left off right after the girl with the sniper rifle (I forget her name) joins your party because her younger brother runs off to Colony 6 like a dumbass. Man I can't wait to get home and play some more.

So I'm at ~11 hours and I'm really liking this game. I spent the first ~8 hours mostly doing sidequests, killing everything that I came across, exploring and just generally dicking around. I finally proceeded with the main quest and wow, shit gets real pretty fast. I did not see Fiora's death coming! I must say I was a little disappointed in Dunban's reaction; his sister had just gotten brutally killed right in front of him and he was like "aw man." Props to Shulk's English voice actor in that scene though. I have to say that I am still overall very impressed with the English dub in this game.

I just got to the Bionis' leg, and while the size actually feels overwhelming to me, I have to hand it to whoever designed the landscape — that is some great art direction. I seriously just stood there for a few minutes and panned the camera around when the sun was setting because it looked absolutely beautiful. I haven't felt like that since I played Okami.

I left off right after the girl with the sniper rifle (I forget her name) joins your party because her younger brother runs off to Colony 6 like a dumbass. Man I can't wait to get home and play some more.

Regarding that first spoiler, that's just kind of how Dunban is. It's not that he didn't feel anything (quite the opposite, see his reaction to seeing Shulk and Reyn leave) he just keeps all that to himself.

Storywise, the game will constantly throw big stuff at you. I think it's really well done in that regard, because it makes the story really easy to hop back into after doing lots of side stuff. You find a nice lull in the story to do some quests and explore, decide to hit up the story again, and it hits the ground running.

I ran out of room for weapons and had to sell a bunch of them. I also sold all of my level 1 and 2 gem crafting materials but I'm almost full again so I guess I'll *finally* use a bunch of them. Gem crafting sux bros

I ran out of room for weapons and had to sell a bunch of them. I also sold all of my level 1 and 2 gem crafting materials but I'm almost full again so I guess I'll *finally* use a bunch of them. Gem crafting sux bros

You have not been enraptured by the beauty of gems? Oh, you young'uns.

I had that same problem (or at least I assume you're talking about this specific part). If you look around the paths you will see more ramps leading down to lower levels. You need to go down those and under the massive door looking things

I ran out of room for weapons and had to sell a bunch of them. I also sold all of my level 1 and 2 gem crafting materials but I'm almost full again so I guess I'll *finally* use a bunch of them. Gem crafting sux bros

I never understood how lengthy it had to be. I am not sure why they couldn't have just skipped the animation part and given you a list of results after just hitting a "craft" button or something.

But yeah, like I said earlier in the thread I'd really just suggest only crafting what you know you're going to use. For level 1 and 2 gems I literally crafted every single thing I found but ended up only using like 10% of them. From then onward I just sort of crafted the obvious stuff and sold the rest, made my life easy.

What are the advantages of doing side-quests? Should I always be doing as many as I can to level up faster? Or is grinding in the field enough to get me through the game? I've done a few SQ so far, and don't find them particularly fun or memorable, at least, not yet.